Boogiepop and Shania and Irina ep 1&2 – It’s Boogiepop time

Hello everyone. Isn’t it exciting!!! A brand new anime season is upon us. Why that only happens 4 to 6 times a year! And new anime mean new episodic reviews from me. But first!:

Introductions are in order. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure yet, this is Shania. She is walking, blogging sweetness and you should go get to know her a bit better over at Quotable Creations (https://quotablecreations.com/about/) I love cosplay blogs. I don’t follow enough but they are always so much fun.

ok not THIS much fun!

Shania: Hiya everyone! Nice to meet ya! And thank you Irina for that really sweet introduction. I do write a cosplay blog, and I love sharing my passion with everyone. It’s a fan girls dream. And one of my favorites is to cosplay anime characters. Cause, well, anime is amazing. Your blog is awesome too, your posts never fail to bring a smile to my face when I read them. Especially the gifs.

It’s an open secret that the blog is really just an excuse to store various anime gifs…

don’t tell anyone!

Anywho, because I need a lot of help with these, Shania was kind enough to volunteer as *tribute*, I mean for a collaboration on this season’s relaunch of BoogiePop.

You should know that I have a personal history with this show. I watched the original and it’s one of those shows where I knew it failed on a lot of levels, and I had no clue what was happening, but it still fascinated me. The memory has clung to me ever since so when this new series was announced I was super excited. Yup, I was the one! I don’t really even remember the original so I won’t be able to compare. Still I’m excited! Shania, did you ever watch the first one?

Sadly, no I haven’t but I have seen the remake roaming around so I gotta say Boogiepop intrigues me a lot. And I’m always on the lookout to expand my anime horizons.

oh you’ve come to the right place my friend

The first episode follows mostly Keiji, a third-year student at Shinyo Academy who after getting stood up by his girlfriend Miyashita, sees her dressed oddly and acting just as weirdly. She claims to actually be BooogiePop, some type of entity or personality that lives in Miyashita’s body and only awakens when there is danger around. Female students have been going missing from the school for some time and it seems a predator is on the loose.

Right off the bat, the OP and color palette made me think of Perfect Blue while the school setting, mysterious disappearances and slow superficial dialogue reminded me of Lain. Both are among my favourite anime. And both tend to be highly acquired tastes that could easily have been unwatchable trash if not handled properly. Did you get the same feel?

Oh yea, most definitely. When I first started watching I can most certainly say I was a bit thrown off by the back and forth of the style and story telling. But, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by it at the same time. It just had a certain feel that made me want to know exactly what was going on.

well…let’s see…

As a cosplay expert what did you think of the aesthetics?

Definitely. At first I thought most of the school uniforms were pretty plain because I watch a lot of “School-oriented” anime, or Slice of Life so to speak. So as far as the uniforms they felt pretty ‘meh’. But I really like the design of Boogiepop. And the designs for our villain and our unlikely protagonists.

that hat is pretty epic!

As a first episode, there wasn’t all that much to it. It established the universe and introduced us to way too many characters. (I had to look up all the names for this post). Even though I really don’t remember the original, it did ring a faint bell. The story of a string of gory murders happening in a high school and an urban legend called Boogiepop being blamed for them while this frail young girl tries to figure out what’s going on as pieces of her life go missing. Like I said, it has some very Perfect Blue elements.

I didn’t hate this episode at all. It was trying a bit too hard to be mysterious and atmospheric but I don’t think it entirely failed. If I could fault it with something it’s the frequent and rather clumsy exposition dumps it resorted to but this may get better with time. How about your thoughts on episode 1?

I think the exact same. They used a lot of characters which made it a bit hard to keep up with, but in time I think we’ll better know the who’s who of the show. And the expositional flashbacks did jar me and I had to resort to rewinding and going back, because I had quite a few “Wait what? Did I miss something here?” moments. But, I can appreciate what they are trying to do here with it.

who’s this girl, should I care?

If I did have one complaint though, the very first male protagonist, Keiji was it? Seemed a bit plain. When he was introduced to what was going on he hardly reacted at all. I mean, c’mon man! The girl you like is being possessed, and there is this killer on the loose. All you have to say is “Ah” and “I see”? I’m definitely hoping that they’ll put more character in him as it goes on. Otherwise I would have to write him off as another “Harem-type” MC.

I think Keiji may be our straight man but I get your point. We’ll see where it goes…

sorry dude, you are kinda boring…

In episode 2 we completely abandon both Keiji and Boogiepop to concentrate on the actual antagonist Maticore and her partner Saotome, as well as suspiciously awesome Nagi Kirima, who seems to be a high school secret agent or something. In this episode we learn of the existence of an alien being called Echoes and how Maticore is in fact a made made synthetic copy of Echoes with the power to morph into the people it meets. It seems Maticore has been praying on the female students but we don’t quite know why yet beyond… evil thing does evil.

I don’t remember any of this! How did the series just suddenly drop everything and become Parasyte? That was one quick turn!

oh wait, this explains it!

You can say that again. It gave a very “So this is happening and that is happening…oh look! Now we have a bloodthirsty killer on the loose. Surprise!”

I didn’t hate this episode either mind you. It just felt like I watched two separate first episodes rather than two consecutive episodes of the same show. Know what I mean?

Definitely.

and now, ninjas!

This time we really went for the bloody horror feel. The series is disjointed but there’s a few ways they could bring it all together. Obviously it’s heading towards the classic GvE confrontation and I bet Nagi and Boogiepop will have some type of friction to get through as well but it could be a decent ride. I’m being very guarded aren’t I? I have some fears about this one.

It’s way too early to pass judgement but I’m still gonna say that there’s way too many plot threads and characters for this to be properly resolve in 12 episodes. I think the run has not been announced yet so there’s hope it will be a 24 ep series.

Any overall thoughts on these first 2 episodes?

I’m building suspense by putting a picture here

All I can say, is I’m getting a very Paranormal type feel that’s trying to play into Slice of Life. I am intrigued with how this is going to go though. And if there was any anime I had to compare this too, probably Parsyte. Mainly because how Manitcore acts.

But even if this show has its flaws, I think this anime has potential. And I’m quite intrigued to see where it goes from here. Will it become this seasons hit? Or just another anime to be made into a meme…

I’m not a meme, you’re a meme

So Shania and I are cautiously optimistic or cautiously not pessimistic?.. Since this was our first collab and there was two episodes to cover, it took a bit to put it together but we’ll try to get you the future episodes in a more timely manner. I certainly hope you guys enjoyed it and don’t forget to drop by https://quotablecreations.com and say hi to Shania!

Also this was two episodes guys so here are a million screencaps. Honestly the way I’ve been going about screencaps lately, you can just switch through them quickly and it’s like a stop motion of the episode…

i just got around to watching the second episode yesterday, and i honestly find this series fascinating so far. the storytelling is definitely strange and something to get used to, but it does seem to fit together in an interesting way so far (provided i take a ton of notes to keep track of everything)

I was fine with the non-linear story telling, but it took a while for me to realise that there are substantial time slips, so the emotional attatchment of boy to Boogiepop at the end of ep1 felt a little weird (I’d caught on by the end of the episode, but hadn’t switched modes yet). I think his function is “normal PoV character”, and it’s to show that sometimes momentous events can pass you right by. You know how there are sometimes observer points of view in fiction? I think the guy, here, is something a little more removed from the events: a confused point of view, who fails to observe what’s actually going on (and it would be too dangerous for him, anyway).

You know: “X is a normal high school boy. One day he meets mysterious girl. Strangely, he doesn’t actually sucked into events, and then they end without him ever finding out details.”

In a sense it feels like a frame story, but with non-linear storytelling employed in a way that the “frame” doesn’t actually function as a frame. Instead it foreshoadows the general conclusion.

What’s been a bit disconcerting for me is that sometimes, in scenes where characters talk that I’m not yet familiar with, the scene composition remains so static and doesn’t even tell me who’s talking that I have no idea who is talking to whom. I can’t tell whether that was deliberate or a function of resource restraints, but in any case that didn’t work for me at all and left me more confused than necessary. At times it felt like audio-drama voice over strewn over setting images, but plot suggests character conversation.

Not a perfect opening, but there’s potential for a cumulative effect to kick in and involve me. If this doesn’t happen, most likely tedium will set in, as it’ll be a demanding watch with little pay off.

Looking at the very top screen grab, that is one very well done face. The hat is to die for. Bland uniforms are good because they don’t detract from the characters. (Bloom had some pretty plain uniforms too.) I’ll definitely be watching the first episode.

Hence the word “vaguely.” Disappearing students, etc. I just really don’t understand the attention that this show is getting. The original was aggressively mediocre, and while you can indeed polish a turd, I doubt anyone’s gonna make it shine. . .

I’ve noticed that a lot of reviewers are focusing on this show this time around. Did the original have THAT big of a following? Are is everybody just fascinated by the titular character’s Dr. Seuss-like get-up? Either way, this really isn’t my cup of tea–for a vaguely similar premise/storyline done much, much better (and without stealing clothes from the Salvation Army box in the dark), I recommend Erased. But have fun reviewing this. Y’all seem like a good pairing, so I’ll continue to check in on this collaboration!